Working on, with and thanks to Drupal everyday, it seems just normal to contribute to it as much as we can. Not only Raincity Studios contribute modules, like Katherine B.'s Quicktabs, or Hostmaster (now Ægir) by the already Drupal-star Adrian, but we just submitted our fifth Drupal theme on Drupal.org called Painted Wall.

A Basic Start

The first theme that we contributed was another starting theme for Drupal : Basic. But instead of being just another starting theme, it is the actual theme we use internally when designing new clients websites.

We were using ZEN classic for the longest time, and realized that everytime we started a new project, we were getting rid of the same snippets, creating the same folders... so when the new ZEN came out, instead of switching, we decided to create our own, with only the necessary elements, trying to create the simplest and most efficient base to start with. No extra code, template or functionalities that could interfere with the one we develop.

So we regrouped all the elements from ZEN that we liked with all the other elements that we like to use. Contributing this theme was not only a gesture for the community, but also a way to keep our base theme always up to date. Now when we start a new website, we simply download Basic.

And then, Design

Basic was quickly followed by three themes that we developed in 2007, but that we never really contributed to Drupal.org because of a lack of time and CVS experience from our designers (me in particular...). These three themes are Moleskine, Abarre, and A Block.

Thanks to the community, two of these three have now an official release. It is always nice to receive feed back from the users who are not only testing, but using this contributed themes on their websites, and I really consider them almost like clients (well.. it's easier to say NO to the crazy feature requests :) ).

Colors please!

Have you ever noticed that most of the user who want a Drupal site simply use Garland because you can customize the colors ? And it kinda makes sense, who wants to have a website that looks exactly like someone else's website? So with a little bit of research and head-banging, we successfully integrated the color module (by the other Drupal star Steven W.) to Abarre and partially to A Block!

Even though it is a great module, it has its limits, and sometimes it just won't be possible to apply it to a specific design, like Moleskine, because there would be too many colors to change. But the way it works is pretty fascinating and it offers a great flexibility for themes. It is so powerful that it could be used in many ways, like giving the ability to a client to change the colors of only specific elements of the websites, like the logo for example. We didn't try it yet, but it's definitely possible.

Once I figured out how to integrate the color module, it was so rewarding (I spent a ridiculously long time changing the colors of Abarre just for fun!) that I decided to try to integrate on all the future themes I'll create, and that's what I did with Painted Wall.

From the design to the admin interface.

The difference with Painted Wall, is that as soon as I started to design it, I always kept in mind that I wanted to use the color module. It actually changed the way I designed it, and I think I could compare this to CSS. I remember when I was learning css, I kept thinking that some elements that I design will be difficult, and sometimes impossible to do with css, so I had to alter the design to make it more doable. The funny thing is that sometimes, it really helps! A good design is a simple one, CSS helped me to be a better designer.

Painted Wall was also a challenge because of the flexibility I wanted it to have. I wanted the user to be able to have a 1, 2 or 3 columns layout, to change the colors, and also make the admin interface more readable. One example is the node edit form. I always try to add some styles to the fields to make them more meaningful, like the title field that has the same font style as the title itself, and same for the body field.

I also added some styles to the fieldset so they look different when opened. Many little tweaks like these ones make the "Drupal life" way more comfortable.

Painted Wall is brand new, but I am already very proud of it, so I hope that the community will like it, and will continue to help us make better drupal themes.

References

• How to integrate the color module
• Create a base for the color module (Youtube)
• Presentation of Ægir By Adrian R.